The prevalence of obesity varies by gender, ethnicity and age. Obesity increases the risk of type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Given the great difficulty associated with losing weight and maintaining lost weight, and the tendency of most Americans to gain weight with age, perhaps a reasonable public health goal for many individuals would be to maintain their current weight. This study will examine associations between weight maintenance and changes in metabolic risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes. The outcomes are fasting serum glucose, fasting serum insulin, triglycerides, low-density and high-density cholesterol, and systolic and diastolic blood pressure. We will determine the effects of weight maintenance on changes in metabolic risk factors over 2 to 3 year segment and over a 9 to 15 year segment in young and middle-aged, African American and white adults. We will also determine if the benefits of weight maintenance are different in normal weight, overweight and obese adults. We will accomplish these aims through separate, but similar, analyses of extant data from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARD IA) study cohort and the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (AR IC) study cohort. The study proposed here will help to fill this gap and contribute useful insights into controlling the impact of obesity on health.